


She stayed for the hills, not for the Prince

by origamixravens



Category: The Little Mermaid (1989), The Little Mermaid - All Media Types
Genre: Ariel appreciates nature, Ariel leaves the ocean for her Prince, But she stays for the land, Environmentalist!Ariel is one of my favorite Disney headcannons, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-21
Updated: 2015-02-21
Packaged: 2018-03-14 07:58:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3402920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/origamixravens/pseuds/origamixravens
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Once Upon a Time, there was a Little Mermaid...<br/>Who traded her beautiful tail for a pair of legs to walk among the humans.</p>
<p>But she did not stay for them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	She stayed for the hills, not for the Prince

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Smileforkiki](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Smileforkiki/gifts).



 

 

            Once Upon a Time, there was a Little Mermaid...

Who traded her beautiful tail for a pair of legs to walk among the humans.

 

But she did not stay for them.

 

 

~ xxx ~

 

 

Ariel left the world of water and fins for the world of sun and green rolling hills. She left her father, her sisters, and her beloved friends for the love of something she could never have under the sea.

 

            They say that she left the water for the handsome prince she saved from drowning when the anger of her ancestors tossed his little ship on the surface of her kingdom.

 

And, maybe she did. Maybe she left the water for the prince with the wind tossed black hair, and the sun-kissed shoulders. Maybe she traded her beautiful voice for the love of a handsome biped.

 

            But Prince Eric was not the reason she stayed.

 

Her father had offered, again and again, to turn her back into a mermaid. To give her back brilliant emerald tail and take away the pain that walking had punished her young, new feet with.

 

            But she refused. Over and over, again and again. Her father, her sisters, Sebastian, and even Flounder once; she refuses them all. She will not go home.

 

            Not when she has seen the world, breathed the air filled of sunshine and clouds in the making. Not when she has walked barefoot over green blades of grass. Not when she has sunk her aching toes into fresh soil and heard the sweet song of the birds and the busy, working one of the bees.

 

            The world is beautiful; full of tangible things and beings that she can never stop marveling at. Her passion, the prince tells her, is loud enough to make up for the loss of her own sweet voice.

 

            She learns how to weave the green blades together to make mats and baskets. She learns that the breeze can tug at the strands of hair and pull it all around her.

 

            Ariel has never been happier.

 

But the wonder, though never lacking, is slightly empty. Ariel’s days are filled with exploration and soon that becomes empty too.

 

            Until she learns about Global Warming.

 

The phrase is foreign on her tongue, and when a foreign dignitary from a kingdom whose name she can never remember explains exactly what this is to her, Ariel still cannot wrap her head around it.

 

            Both worlds; the one she was born in and the world she emerged into, are being destroyed by the careless and thoughtless pollution by humans who cannot wrap their heads around the beauty they are damaging.

 

            She locks herself in the castle library for weeks on end; reading books on natural science, global ethics, and habitat preservation. Ariel enters the library as a weeping young woman in search of knowledge.

 

            She emerges anew; a young warrior princess with the light of determination shining like sunlight from her eyes, and waves of newly acquired knowledge streaming from her pink lips.

 

Ariel seeks out the royal adviser, and after getting over his initial shock, he obliges to her requests and helps her learn what she’ll need to know to make the difference she intends to leave upon the world.

 

            Because the Little Mermaid traded her tail for a pair of legs to walk this beautiful Earth.

 

She will not stand idly by as it wastes away because of the careless and uneducated decisions of the mortals who don’t know how lucky they are.

 

            Ariel has fought for less. She will not stand by and let them destroy her two beautiful worlds.

 

            Ariel arms herself with knowledge for ammunition, and trains her lips in front of a mirror to shoot intelligent, concise statements to leave her opponents gasping for breath.

 

            When she is ready, Eric has his servants set up a carriage for her, and she rides off to war.

 

 

~ xxx ~

 

 

            The Nations Environmental Conference is in a large city by the sea.

 

Ariel, in her haste to fight in her own war, hasn't been to see her home world in months. She walks slowly to the edge of the small outcropping of rocks, the waves lapping around her ankles and soaking the hem of her pale lavender gown.

 

            The fabric is bunched up in one hand as she leans over and swirls the cold water with the other. Ariel doesn't move from this position for an immeasurable amount of time.

 

            Ariel isn't sure how she hasn't noticed it before. She had been naive back then, swept up by the strangeness of the two-legged mortals. She hadn't listened to her father; the horrors they were capable of.

 

            The sea was littered with pollution. Empty plastic bags, spots of oil glinting with a bright, misleading glow. Tin cans, discarded Styrofoam cups.

 

            Her family is dying, she realizes. It won’t be long before this filth reaches Atlantis. They will drown in the waves of trash and pollution, just as her prince would have drowned in the waves that were her home had she not stepped in and saved him.

 

            Now, Ariel realized, she’d have to do it all over again.

 

            Her resolve strengthened, Ariel straightens her back into what she was taught was considered a ‘regal posture’, and turns her back from the sea, treading lightly over jagged rocks with aching, bare feet. Each footfall takes her closer and closer to battle.

 

 

~ xxx ~

 

 

            Ariel had never felt powerful in her entire life.

 

But armed with words as weapons and her passion as fuel, she finally feels a burning, erratic sense of power.

 

            And she is drunk with it. She goes to every environmental convention she can find, and pours her heart and her passion for all to see. They are astounded by her; the silly little mermaid princess that traded one world for another, fighting for both.

 

            They cannot understand her sudden interest, having dismissed her only as petty little thing that the Prince married because she is beautiful.

 

            Yes, the Prince married her for her beauty.

 

For the beauty that is her unquenchable determination, for the beauty that is the hard line of her lips when she straightens herself and stands up to her father, telling him ‘no’. He marries her for the beauty that is more than just skin deep; for the beauty of her compassion and kindness that lives in the core of her being.

 

            And the delegates and scientists she speaks to are astounded when they realize this.

 

            She receives more renown after that.

 

Her battles become more frequent, but less stressful. They become a fight that she enjoys, aging her with stress but rejuvenating her soul.  

 

            They start to take her seriously.

 

When she does come home, Eric greets her with a warm, proud smile and open arms.

 

            Ariel smiles when she realizes that she is, for the first time in her life, completely and wholly contented.

 

            If she wants to explore, she explores. There is a whole room in the palace reserved for the trinkets and knickknacks that she brings home from her travels.

 

            She pitched the idea to make the castle (and a large part of the kingdom) go green; recycling their trash and compacting fertilizer. She helps to plan the import/export schedule on the seas; mapping out the rough spots of water (the area above Ursula’s cave is all white foam and hostile waves even without the sea witch), and warning the sailors of when her father is in a bad mood, therefore more likely to make the sea less hospitable

 

(it’s in the bite of the waves when she stands barefoot on the beach, she explains when Eric asks her late one night.

In how the water bites back at this daughter of the sea turned mistress of the earth.

She does not tell him; not anyone, that each day that the sea bites back against her skin instead of sliding along it like silk, like how it used to, she feels a little stab and tug at her heart.

_Don’t you recognize me?_ She wants to scream back to the waves.

_I am the youngest daughter of the sea King; the curious mermaid with the mane of red flames._

_Don’t you remember me?_ )

 

 

~ xxx ~

 

 

Ariel keeps busy.

 

            There are days when she misses it; the silky smooth flow of the water against her skin. The unity of having one tail to propel her effortlessly through the water (she imagines that that is how flying would feel, if mortals could fly).

 

There are days when she fights with Eric (every healthy marriage has fights, after all), and she wonders if giving up her tail and homeland was worth all this.

 

Then she walks outside, out under the trees to breath in the air so full of sunshine. To stand in the rain while the thunder sounds like crashing ships on the open sea, and lightning strikes as brightly and severely as her father’s trident.

 

            And she thinks that, yes, _yes,_ this was worth it. All of it. Ariel could be given thousands of shiny sequined tails to keep and she’d give up every single one of them for the beautiful soil she stands on.

 

            Because the curious little redheaded mermaid may have traded her tail for a pair of legs to walk upon the ground with her mortal lover;

 

But the environmental revolutionist reborn from the sea and into the air stays not for the love of her handsome prince, but for the love of a land that is the rolling green hills she runs across, the whistling steady breeze that combs through her hair.

 

            Because Ariel may have left the sea for the prince; but she stayed for the hills.

 

~ xxx ~

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> For @Smileforkiki ,  
> I was originally going to call it 'The Symphony of 5000 Dying Whales' (because global warming and everything,) but I guess I got a little side tracked. Anyway, this is still for you, and this is still inspired by your 'horrendous' piano playing.
> 
> You're welcome.


End file.
